Lies

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was in the news recently as one of the 51 officials who signed a letter saying that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation. Americans quickly forget about past stories but Clapper was involved with the Snowden leaked NSA secret documents. Recall that after 9-11 Bush using the Patriot Act allowed surveillance on American citizens. Whistle blowers leaked this and an investigation followed. This was during the 2008 election and Obama pledged his administration would not allow such activity. After Obama was elected he chose to continue the collection of information on American citizens. During the investigation Clapper testified before congress that no such collecting was going on. Here was the question he was asked: Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions of Americans. He answered no. The Snowden documents later revealed that the government was collecting data on millions and when Clapper was asked about this he said, I didn't lie, I made a big mistake and I just simply didn't understand what I was being asked about. This adds a third way to avoid being charged with lying to congress. The first two were used most recently by Hillary Clinton who answered many questions by saying, I don't know or I don't remember. Hillary Clinton told the FBI, I do not recall or remember 39 times in her interviews with the FBI about her private email servers.